Digital media and technology are ever-evolving, and so is their relationship to theatre. In this section, you can learn about how theatremakers are incorporating media and tech into their art-making and career-building, as well as read New Crit pieces about work created to be shared online. Two interesting series to explore for a sense of how quickly the conversations change are Gwydion Suilebhan’s Techne—essays written in 2013 and 2014—and Performing the Internet, curated by Kate Bergstrom in January 2021. Check out content from the 2019 Digital + Performance Convening for a multifaceted look at this topic!
The Latest
Essay
How to Embrace the Dramaturgy of Creative Caption Design
Jonathan Mandell examines the new theatrical landscape brought on by COVID-19 and discusses the emerging aesthetic—one that is low-tech, low-key, one-on-one, close-up.
Bringing La MaMa's 1960s café aesthetic to a virtual platform that links performers and audiences in real time across distance
Friday 3 April 2020
New York City
La MaMa and CultureHub presented Downtown Variety livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Friday 3 April 2020 at 5 p.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC-7) / 7 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC-5) / 8 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC-4).
An online workshop with Creative Capital to help artists better understand how to livestream their work to virtual audiences
Tuesday 31 March 2020
United States
Creative Capital presented Coping with COVID: Livestreaming for Artists livestreamed on the global, commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Tuesday 31 March 2020 at 1 p.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC-7) / 3 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC-5) / 4 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC-4) / 9 p.m. BST (London, UTC+1).
Livestreamed the #ArtistResource panel Come Together: The Art of Gathering in a Time of Crisis on the global, commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Tuesday 31 March 2020 at 8 a.m. HST (Honolulu, UST-10) / 10 a.m. AKDT (Juneau, UTC-8) / 11 a.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC-7) / 1 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC-5) / 2 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC-4).
Alex Ates speaks with Whit MacLaughlin—the experimental theatremaker who ventured into the online realm before it became our norm—about the intersection between digital technology and live performance and pedagogy.
Bringing La MaMa's 1960s café aesthetic to a virtual platform that links performers and audiences in real time across distance
Friday 27 March 2020
United States
La MaMa and CultureHub presented Downtown Variety livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Friday 27 March 2020 at 5 p.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC-7) / 7 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC-5) / 8 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC-4).
New Virtual Theatre about Islam, Sexuality, and Cultural Appropriation
Friday 27 March 2020
Washington, D.C.
Convergence Theatre presented its virtual performance of Snapshots by Asif Majid, livestreamed on the global, commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Friday March 27 2020 at 4 p.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC-7) / 6 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC-5) / 7 p.m EDT (New York, UTC-4) / 11 p.m. GMT (London, UTC+0).
Tracy C. Davis talks to instructors at Northwestern University about how they are preparing to teach acting and dance—quintessentially embodied forms dependent on human-to-human observation and whole-body involvement—online.
For US-Based Freelance Artists and Cultural Workers in all Disciplines
Monday 16 March 2020
United States and the World
HowlRound and a group of artists, arts administrators, and others from around the US discussed how COVID-19 is impacting freelance artists. The panel was livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Monday 16 March 2020.
American sign language interpretation and live captions are available.
CultureHub’s annual festival brings artists, activists, and technologists together to envision our role in re-shaping the future
Thursday 12 March - Saturday 14 March 2020
New York City
CultureHub presented their annual festival Re-Fest livestreaming on the commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Thursday 12 March to Saturday 14 March 2020.
Toasterlab presented the Mixed Reality Performance Symposium at UBC livestreamed on the commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Friday 21 February 2020 from 10 a.m. PST (Vancouver, UTC -8) / 12 p.m. CST (Chicago, UTC -6) / 1 p.m EST (Toronto, UTC -5) to 4 p.m. PST (Vancouver, UTC -8) / 6 p.m. CST (Chicago, UTC -6) / 7 p.m. EST (Toronto, UTC-5).
by Toasterlab with Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts and Technology at York University
Tuesday 5 November 2019
Toronto, Ontario
Toasterlab and Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts and Technology presented the Mixed Reality Performance Symposium livestreamed on the commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Tuesday 5 November 2019 from 7 a.m. PST (Vancouver, UTC -8) / 9 a.m. CST (Chicago, UTC -6) / 10 a.m EST (Toronto, UTC -5) to 2 p.m. PST (Vancouver, UTC -8) / 4 p.m. CST (Chicago, UTC -6) / 5 p.m. EST (Toronto, UTC-5).
The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center presented the artist talk Virtual Reality, Cyborgs, and Neuroscience in Contemporary Performance livestreamed on the commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv Monday 4 November 2019 at 6:30 p.m. EST (New York, UTC -5) / 3:30 p.m. PST (Los Angeles, UTC -8) / 23:30 GMT (London, UTC +0).
Zoë Svendsen discusses working with fellow theatremakers to build and present imagined realities of London and Oslo in post-capitalist and post-fossil-fuel cultures.
Ethos and The VORTEX presented a performance of :HUMPTY livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer-produced HowlRound TV network on Friday 27 September 2019 at 9 p.m. EDT (New York) / 8 p.m. CDT (Chicago) / 6 p.m. PDT (Los Angeles).
Arts based research, playful media, gaming, participation and civic engagement
Monday 16 September 2019
Bucharest, Romania
The Goethe Institute in Bucharest, Romania presented the Cultural Management Academy 2019 Opening Lecture Transmedia Playful Aesthetics by Patrícia Gouveia livestreaming on the global, commons-based peer-produced HowlRound TV network on Monday 16 September at 12 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4) / 16:00 UTC +0 / 5 p.m. BST (London, UTC +1) / 18:00 CEST (Berlin, UTC +2) / 19:00 EEST (Bucharest, UTC +3).
Presented by ASSITEJ - International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People
Tuesday 3 September - Friday 6 September
Kristiansand, Norway
ASSITEJ presented The ASSITEJ Artistic Gathering 2019 livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer-produced HowlRound TV network from Tuesday 3 September to Friday 6 September.
Research on the development of an international linked open data ecosystem for the performing arts
Wednesday 21 August 2019
Montréal, Quebec, Canada
Co-authors of the report A Linked Digital Future for the Performing Arts: Leveraging Synergies along the Value Chain, Beat Estermann and Frédéric Julien, will present key insights from a groundbreaking research on the development of an international linked open data ecosystem for the performing arts. This conceptual model will be demonstrated with actual data visualizations from a Canadian theatre production. Benefits for the stakeholders of the performing arts value chain and recommendations for next steps will be discussed. This presentation and discussion will be of interest to anyone interested in digital collaboration and digital discoverability of the performing arts. Livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv Wednesday 21 August 2019 at 9 a.m PDT (Vancouver) / 10 a.m. MDT (Calgary) / 11 a.m. CDT (Winnipeg) / 12 p.m. EDT (Montréal) / 16:00 UTC +0 / 5 p.m. BST (London)
Observations from HowlRound and SpiderWebShow’s Digital + Performance Convening
12 August 2019
May Antaki reflects on the Digital + Performance Convening, produced by HowlRound Theatre Commons and SpiderWebShow Performance, which focused on the intersection of digital technology and live performance.
SpiderWebShow Performance and HowlRound presented events from FoldA (Festival of Live Digital Art) livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv from Thursday 13 June to Saturday 15 June 2019.
Kingston, Ontario At The Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts
On 12 June 2019 in Kingston, Ontario, HowlRound Theatre Commons and SpiderWebShow Performance will co-produce a one day Digital + Performance Convening that will bring together up to fifty practitioners, curators, and scholars from the US and Canada working at the intersection of performance and digital technology for a day of discussion that aims to break open assumptions and reveal future possibilities for the art form.
Members of the Detroit-based artist collective Complex Movements discuss the connection between technology, performance, and social justice community organizing.
In the lead-up to HowlRound’s Digital + Performance Convening, Michael Wheeler and Sydney Skybetter chatted, via Slack, about some of the big questions artists are faced with as they contemplate the connection between theatre and technology.
David Z. Saltz—director, installation artist, and teacher of digital performance—talks about the early days of digital media in theatre and the six main roles it plays in live performance.
The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center in New York City presented conversations from Screening Performance, Performing Screens: New Projections in Theatre and Media livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv Tuesday 14 May.
